First Crash... Quickly to the internet!!!
- Thread starter stoke1863
- Start date
As a general policy, all insurers settle claiming arising at roundabouts 50:50, unless their are witnesses, or one side admits liability. All claims, no matter how good they look to you. I suspect that the witness here is fully aware of this. I agree with what someone said: the OP should go through their insurer, but give the witnesses details to his insurer along with the deal he was proposing.
M
Oh dear OP. I had this happen to me twice. Not trying to give you horror stories, just facts as to how things turned out for me:
Incident 1:
Almost identical to your situation with regard to damage on each vehicle. I was hugging roundabout to turn right and another car came into my lane. It was 100% the other parties fault.
Result? Third party had insurance and tried to stall it indefinitely being uncontactable. His own insurers actually gave up on him as he would not get back to them and respond to letters so it defaulted to me. That took 1 year 2 months. My car was written off as it was worth less than yours.
Incident 2:
Turning right from main road into minor road and third party pulled out into main road without looking catching my offside rear 3/4, again similar damage to yours. 100% 3rd parties fault and I got a witness. This occured in January this year during the snowy spell. It's still ongoing as the 3rd party won't admit liability and they have days to respond otherwise I'm going to court. I've said I'm happy (yeah real happy) to attend court to get this sorted out. Car has been repaired but it's been a farce and I've wasted considerable hours of my life on an incident that is so obviously the other persons fault. My premiums have gone up on both cars due to a pending claim when I renewed.
Time wasting morons on the roads.
As for your situation with the witness. Tell him to go **** himself. Ring your insurance and wait for it to go "knock for knock" or to court. Don't waste your life worrying about it or getting annoyed by it. Just wait. I think your car may be written off. That looks like about half the value of the cars worth of damage. Depends on the insurers policy.
Incident 1:
Almost identical to your situation with regard to damage on each vehicle. I was hugging roundabout to turn right and another car came into my lane. It was 100% the other parties fault.
Result? Third party had insurance and tried to stall it indefinitely being uncontactable. His own insurers actually gave up on him as he would not get back to them and respond to letters so it defaulted to me. That took 1 year 2 months. My car was written off as it was worth less than yours.
Incident 2:
Turning right from main road into minor road and third party pulled out into main road without looking catching my offside rear 3/4, again similar damage to yours. 100% 3rd parties fault and I got a witness. This occured in January this year during the snowy spell. It's still ongoing as the 3rd party won't admit liability and they have days to respond otherwise I'm going to court. I've said I'm happy (yeah real happy) to attend court to get this sorted out. Car has been repaired but it's been a farce and I've wasted considerable hours of my life on an incident that is so obviously the other persons fault. My premiums have gone up on both cars due to a pending claim when I renewed.
Time wasting morons on the roads.
As for your situation with the witness. Tell him to go **** himself. Ring your insurance and wait for it to go "knock for knock" or to court. Don't waste your life worrying about it or getting annoyed by it. Just wait. I think your car may be written off. That looks like about half the value of the cars worth of damage. Depends on the insurers policy.
That really angers me. Surely ICs should have the power to heavily fine or even blacklist people who simply become 'uncontactable'. It's about time the industry had a crack down on this sort of thing.
OP, the witness sounds like a ******. Precisely people like that who screw the system for money and put premiums up for the rest of us.
Buffoons like the witness, and the other driver in the OP give me more ammo for my decision of wether to get an in-car recording system or not. Been in two accidents in my driving career, 1st one the police were behind him, so no worming out of it, even if he wanted to. And the 2nd, guy went into the back of me, so clear cut, and admitted fault.
Really?! That is terrible. Surely this case is no different to someone pulling out of a side road into the side of someone in the lane nearest to them?
Quick update: his insurance just rang me. He has admitted liability now despite what he said at the roadside.repair is going through his insurance so not involving my insurance.also means witness isn't needed so he won't get any money out of it! Win win if say
Man of Honour
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Good news. 
Soldato
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Just a small note, be careful when renewing your policy. Listen to what is asked, if they say any accidents, claims or convictions you will need to declare an accident that was 100% other parties fault, was settled and all finalised as his fault.
If they mention fault in relation to accidents your fine to ignore.
The Ins cos will know about it and it should have no effect on your premium, but if you do not declare this they can potentially say you have misdeclared facts.
99.99% of the time they will ignore it, but its always safer to declare and let them decide.
If they mention fault in relation to accidents your fine to ignore.
The Ins cos will know about it and it should have no effect on your premium, but if you do not declare this they can potentially say you have misdeclared facts.
99.99% of the time they will ignore it, but its always safer to declare and let them decide.
It shouldnt, but arent people who have had an accident more likely to have another? (sure i have read this before). If so, it would mean an increase in the policy cost.
Soldato
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I can't believe the witness if the business owner... That's no way to run a business. I expect he'll be on watchdog or something at some point!
The problem is proving it on a roundabout. If someone pulls out of a side road in front of you and you T-bone them, or they T-bone you, then it's obvious from the position of the vehicles after the accident what happened*. But there's almost nothing which can happen on a roundabout which 100% shows one person to be to blame. And the cost of trying to get to the bottom of it isn't worth it (and probably won't succeed anyway). You usually have damage on the sides of the vehicles and both drivers claiming they were going straight and the other veered off course. Been there, done that. In my case a Yaris headed straight for the exit, cutting across the lane nearest the centre. Unfortunately I was in that lane at the time. But here story was that I veered outwards and hit her. Both would produce exactly the same damage. She refused to admit liability, so it went 50:50. Someone in the trade I know tells me this is normal. The fact that he two insurers wangled for four months over £2k of damage total was, he said, very unusual: my company must have fought much harder than usual.
M
* His advice on the subject was: "If someone pulls out of a side road in front of you, go ahead and hit them. If you cross the white lines and there's an accident, it's much harder to show what happened, and you my lose part or all the settlement. But smack into the side of them and you'll win."
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The white lines comment was in relation to an incident at a side road, not a roundabout, he made that quite clear.
Thanks - yes, I was illustrating a different point: one of the very rare cases where the insurers know whose fault an accident was. On a roundabout it is never clear, no matter how obvious it might appear to you if you were involved. To someone listening to the stories later there are always other possible explanations.
M